It was still spring when Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel packed their bags. They had organized a trial session in Bergamo, far away from Berlin, where they saw no prospects for themselves after the departure of international training couples. “We didn’t really want to leave,” said Robert Kunkel recently, because such a new start posed an acute danger of black ice for the young couple. The risk was worth it: Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel, 22 and 23 years old, came third in the European Championships and danced to their first international medal in Espoo.
Such an exodus into the wide world has now become a fixed topos in figure skating success stories. Aljona Savchenko, who grew up near Kyiv, once set off all by herself to a country that had previously been foreign to her. The pair skating Olympic champion from Pyeongchang has meanwhile traveled on and coached a Dutch duo in Espoo. Since Savchenko/Massot, also world champions in 2018, no German skid artist had won a badge in an international title fight for the DEU association by Thursday evening.
An even brighter silver or gold glow would have been possible for Hocke/Kunkel, who took to the ice as runners-up after their spirited short program to Abba’s musical “Mamma Mia”. Then Annika Hocke fell in the freestyle to the more elegiac sounds of “Without you” in the triple Salchow. Both of them only jumped the toeloop twice instead of three times, which meant that the judges downgraded them one place. The second German couple, Alissa Jefimowa and Ruben Blommaert, who train in Oberstdorf, slipped from third place to thankless fourth place after a few mistakes.
Before one, Hocke/Kunkel had finished 13th at the European Championships
Annika Hocke was a little disappointed after this evening, because she and her partner had had the chance in Finland to possibly use a historic moment of glory. The three Russian couples, who had shared all the medals in the European title fights the year before, were missing: Because of the war of aggression against Ukraine, all athletes from the country of the aggressors Russia and Belarus are banned from the competitions of the World Figure Skating Union ISU until further notice. “I’m a bit sad that we couldn’t show our best at the European Championship, but we take a lot of good things with us,” said Hocke: “We always forget that we’re a fairly new team with our coaches. We’ve changed a lot, and it’s still the beginning.” Before one they had taken 13th place at the European Championships.
No one knows better than Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel how realistic the opportunity would have been to beat the new European champions Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii from Italy and the runners-up, their compatriots Rebecca Ghilardi and Filippo Ambrosini, with perfect individual jumps. Because since moving to Bergamo, they’ve all been there together on the ice. Outside of Russia, the privately financed academy has earned a reputation as the most important European figure skating center, Hocke/Kunkel enthused recently at the German championship.
The German duo is looked after by former pair skater Ondrej Hotarek, they have an athletic trainer, ballet and dance lessons: “There is at least one full position for everyone there,” said Kunkel. She is therefore grateful to her SC Charlottenburg club, which initially supported her with a fundraiser, as well as to the DEU association, which is now sponsoring her stay in Bergamo. They will probably stay a while longer south of the Alps, in the promised land of ice flowers. IN March the next task at the World Cup in Japan is already on the agenda.